Early exposure to common anesthetic and sedative agents causes widespread brain cell degeneration and apoptosis in the developing rat brain, associated with persistent learning deficits in rats. This study was designed to determine whether the α2 adrenergic receptor agonist, dexmedetomidine, produces brain cell degeneration and apoptosis in postnatal day-7 rats in the same brain areas when compared to ketamine.
Systemic saline, ketamine 20 mg/kg, or dexmedetomidine at 30 or 45 μg/kg were given six times to postnatal day 7 rats (n=6/group) every 90 minutes. Twenty-four hours after the initial injection, brain regions were processed and analyzed for cell degeneration using the silver stain and for apoptosis using activated caspase-3 immunohistochemistry.
Exposure to ketamine resulted in significant cellular degeneration and apoptosis in limbic brain regions, but non-significant changes in primary sensory brain regions. In contrast, dexmedetomidine produced significant cellular degeneration and apoptosis in primary sensory brain regions, but non-significant changes in limbic regions.
These data show that ketamine and dexmedetomidine result in anatomically distinct patterns of cell degeneration and apoptosis in the brains of 7-day-old rat pups. The meaning and the clinical significance of these findings remain to be established.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 23 March 2022.
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#9,328,832
of 33,934,236 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine
#853
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Outputs of similar age
#96,645
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Outputs of similar age from Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine
#12
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Altmetric has tracked 33,934,236 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 71st percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,913 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.1. This one has done well, scoring higher than 76% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 336,399 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 77 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.
